Virtuoso Development Limited

It feels like we’re asked these questions on a weekly basis and with good cause too…

We carefully chose the term ‘mentoring’ due to the fact that all our mentors hold real-life, practical, first-hand business experience and have a successful proven track record. Private clients benefit from our guidance of what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t!

Virtuoso Development’s mentors are successful business owners who have become Business Mentors…

They are not people who have simply bought a business coaching franchise…

“Think about that for a minute…there’s a very BIG difference. Which would you rather take your business advice from…?

Phillip GibbsFounder and Managing Director – Virtuoso Development Ltd

Experience and Qualifications

As well as their ‘real-life’ business experience, all our mentors are fully qualified CIPD trainers as well as being NLP Business Practitioners and there lies the second BIG difference…!

Developing people, helping them learn new techniques; understanding the way they think and how to effectively impart knowledge, is an essential skill for a successful mentor. This is why all our mentors have completed their CIPD trainers training and are NLP Business Practitioners. It ensures our mentors are able to transfer their knowledge in a way that our clients can engage with.

Uncover why NLP gives us a distinct advantage...

Over the last 5 years there’s been one consistent element with every client and Nuero-Lingustic Programming (N-LP) has been and, will continue to be, an essential tool in overcoming this challenge and creating success for our clients.

New clients always seem to ask for advice on how to grow their business and, that is exactly where we start. We review their business, identify the strengths and, establish the areas with scope for improvement. We then set out solid business growth tactics, strategies and techniques to move things forward.

However, with every client, after a while we’ll approach and uncover areas where some personal development is required to really move things forward… to ultimately be super successful.

This is where NLP is an essential tool. It enables our mentors to effectively develop our clients as individuals, ensuring that the way they are thinking, the actions they are taking and the decisions they making, are all completely aligned with what they want to achieve…the end goal. When all these aspects are built together business and life in general gets very exciting.

So… in our opinion, any business coach/advisor/consultant who doesn’t have these skills and qualifications will never experience long-term success with clients. Sooner or later they will hit the ‘personal development’ challenge and, that challenge always rears it head before the end goal is achieved.

You Will Benefit From Our Unique Fee Structure

There is one thing our founder, Phillip Gibbs vows will never change and, that is, to maintain the companies unique approach to fees. Phillip says:-

“The company was founded on this unique approach in 2007, an approach that to this day remains completely unchallenged. It’s absolutely fundamental to how we work…why our clients are successful… and why we’re successful too.”

Businesses always need cash available to enable them to grow. No-one can argue with that…

This is why we scale our fees right from the start. We will invest time, experience and expertise in you and your business right from day one.

We will start at a nominal fee, fixed for six months and agree goals and steps on a six monthly basis.

We will only increase our fee if you agree that we have achieved the goals we set out to achieve.

We will only increase our fee if you are completely happy that we are adding value to you, your business and your bottom line.

And finally, we will of course, only increase our fee if the monthly profits and cash flow can sustain the projected increase.

Does that sound reasonable…?

Discover why Fee Scaling is essential to your success

To do this, lets start by looking at the rather fundamental flaws with a fixed fee approach.

The fixed fee approach all to often creates one of these scenarios:-

Scenario 1 – After a few months of paying a premium fixed fee rate the business owner starts to question how much benefit their really gathering. They see the invoices coming in and the fixed fee impacting on the bottom line profits. This often causes them to question the whole agreement. Now… here’s the crunch, when this co-insides with them approaching the ‘personal development area’ we talked about above, it all to often means that they choose to end the agreement and it’s game over for both parties.

No-ones really benefited…not a great result for either party.

By the way, this is often why many business coaching organisations use aggressive high-volume marketing techniques like tele-sales. It’s because they have a high level of client turnover, not an ideal situation for any business, particularly one that is advising you on growing your business!

If you only take one thing from this website, please let it be this… if you’re approached by a business coach via a tele-sales call please ask yourself “why are they adopting this technique?” “what’s their client retention like?” In fact, go ahead and ask them to answer these questions directly. It’ll be interesting…!

Scenario 2 – Put simply, the client’s cash flow struggles to support the increased cost base and after three to five months they are forced to end the agreement because money is being stripped out of the business before any monthly bottom line profit has been added.

We know this one sounds a little too simple, but trust us, if we had a pound for every time we’d come across this scenario we’d all be taking an extra holiday each year…!

So there we have it… two fundamental flaws and the most common problems that fixed fee chargers come across.

Now, of course, we’re not a charity. In fact, if you’ve ever been in business negotiations with Phil you’ve probably heard him say “We’ve got a VAT number…not a charity number” It’s one of his favourite sayings…!

However, our approach of scaling fees and linking them to the increased profitability of the business does have one fairly serious knock-on effect.

We have to consider our client applications carefully before entering into any agreements. We have to be able to see that there’s a great, exciting end goal in it for both you and us!

However…

it’s absolutely why we have many, many happy clients…

it’s why our average client agreement runs for 19 months.

Simply put…there must be scope for your business to be successful and, therefore, scope for us to gradually scale our fees when, and only when, the net monthly bottom line profits are showing a sustainable increase.

Our Investment Can Help Your Business

Over the last 5 years we’ve mentored and invested in various companies helping them to launch new products, establish themselves overseas or relocate to larger premises. Several of these companies we still work with today, as non-exec Directors, helping them to develop even further.

Will we invest in your business...?

Establishing a good partnership can be very powerful and very enjoyable. But, for us, it has to be that way round…

We don’t ever invest in businesses we haven’t mentored for at least 6 months. This is simply because we don’t have money to waste! We will only invest in businesses we know are:- well run; well structured; with great products and most importantly with owners who have masses of energy and clear goals they believe they will achieve.

We’re completely confident that one of our team will be able to help you succeed…

Help unlock the potential within you and your business.

“It’s about…

…being able to draw from real-life experience and not just a franchise training manual.

…being able to develop business strategies, specific to the business sector that will work for the long term.

…being able to develop people as individuals. Helping you to understand your thinking, your goals, your actions and pulling it together into a combined business and personal development success plan.

…scaling fees, starting at a sensible, affordable level and linking them to the success as the business grows.

Excited to get started…? Here’s the range of programmes we offer:-

Business Mentor

Tier 1

Ideal for business owners who find themselves struggling to move forward, perhaps feeling a little trapped where they are. Turnover may be stagnant, costs increasing and profits declining.
Key benefits:-

Business Mentor

Tier 2

Perfect for ambitious business owners looking to unlock their potential. They are probably feeling a little frustrated and hold a strong desire to move faster. Turnover may well be stable but the monthly profits are not exciting. They will feel like they deserve more for the effort that’s being put in.
Key benefits:-

Business Mentor

Tier 3

Ideal for business owners who feel as if they’re on their own. They will hold a high level of confidence in their own ability but lack an experienced third party to discuss their ideas and strategies with. They may well feel like their business is being held back by areas they lack strength in.
Key benefits:-

Personal Mentor

Personal Development

Designed for those who want to understand their own actions and develop themselves. They will feel that they deserve more from life than they are currently achieving. They will hold a strong desire to achieve greater things, operate at a higher level and feel more satisfaction.
Key benefits:-